THE GIRL WHOSE SHADOW HOWLED

I have always known I was different…

Not in the way girls at school whispered about me when they thought I couldn’t hear.  Not because I was quiet.  Or because I preferred the forest behind my grandmother’s abandoned cottage to parties and crowded shopping centres.

No. I was different for reasons I had spent seventeen years trying to ignore.  Sometimes, my reflection blinked when I didn’t.

Sometimes when I stood beneath the moonlight, my shadow had four legs.  And sometimes when the world fell silent, I could hear something breathing inside me.  I had learned to pretend none of it was happening.  It was easier that way.  People didn’t take kindly to a girl who claimed her reflection had a mind of its own, and I had no intention of becoming the village’s favorite subject of gossip. So I ignored the strange things.  I buried my questions.  I convinced myself that one day, everything would make sense. 

Then came the night when my shadow smiled.

It happened on a Thursday, beneath a sky, the color of bruised plums.  I was walking home through Hollowmere Forest, my schoolbag bumping against my hip with every step.  The village lights glimmered in the distance, warm and welcoming against the gathering darkness.  Normally, would have welcomed their familiar glow.

But something felt wrong.  The forest had grown unnaturally silent.  No birds called from the branches overhead.  No insects hummed in the undergrowth.  Even the familiar rustling of leaves had ceased leaving a stillness so completely silent that I could hear the crunch of every twig beneath my shoes.

I slowed my pace.

Perhaps it was the approaching storm.  Perhaps the animals had sensed something in the air that I couldn’t.  Or perhaps I was finally losing my mind.  Then I heard it.

A Howl.

It rose from somewhere deep among the trees, low and mournful, carrying a strange ache that settled beneath my ribs.

I stopped walking.  The sound faded, leaving an unsettling silence in its wake.  For a moment, I stood perfectly still, staring into the darkness between the trees.  Then something inside me answered. 

Not with a voice.  With a feeling.  A sudden, unfamiliar hunger stirred deep in my chest so powerful that I stumbled backwards.  My foot caught against a tree root, and I nearly fell.

I grabbed the nearest branch to steady myself, my heart hammering violently against my ribs.

What was that?

I pressed a trembling hand to my chest, as though I could somehow hold the strange sensation in place.  “Stop it”, I whispered.  I wasn’t sure whether I was speaking to myself or whatever had awakened inside me.  The howl came again.  This time, every hair on my arms stood on end.

A shiver traveled down my spine, and an inexplicable urge rose within me, an urge to run, to hide, to disappear into the trees. But beneath the fear, something else stirred.  Something that wanted to answer.  I swallowed hard and forced myself to take a step forward.  That was when I saw movement between the trees. A shape slipped behind a thick oak, too quick for me to make out what it was.  I caught only a fleeting glimpse of something dark moving low to the ground.  My stomach twisted.  “Hello?” I called. 

My voice sounded painfully small in the vast silence.  Nothing answered.  I stood there for another second straining to see through the shadows.  Then a branch snapped behind me.   I ran.  I didn’t think.  I didn’t look for a logical explanation.  I simply turned and sprinted towards the village, my schoolbag slamming against my side as branches whipped at my face and roots caught at my shoes.

My lungs burned.

My legs ached.

Still I ran.

Behind me I heard footsteps.

Not the light, hurried steps of another person running along the path.  These were heavier.  Faster.  They seemed to follow every turn I made, keeping pace no matter how desperately I tried to outrun them.

I risked a glance over my shoulder.

The path was empty.

I stumbled but caught myself before I fell.  My pulse thundered in my ears drowning out the sound of my own breathing.

There was nothing behind me.

Nothing I could see, anyway. 

I forced myself to keep running until the first houses appeared through the trees. 

Finaly, I reached the old stone bridge, just a short distance from town. I slowed my steps and stopped at the entrance, straining to hear anything that might explain the howl I had just heard.  But there was nothing. The night was still, the river flowed quietly beneath the weathered stones, and the trees stood motionless beneath the pale moonlight.  No branches snapped in the darkness.  Nothing stirred in the shadows.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

Maybe I had imagined it all.  The strange noises, the feeling of being watched, the fleeting movements at the edge of my vision.  Perhaps fear had simply gotten the better of me.

“Get a grip,” I whispered to myself.  “You’re just tired”. 

I looked down at the ground, my shadow stretching out before me beneath the pale moonlight.  Except it wasn’t the shadow of a girl. 

It was a wolf.

I stared in disbelief, unable to breathe.  The familiar outline of my body was gone, replaced by the unmistakable shape of a wolf standing on four legs.  Its pointed ears, slender muzzle and bushy tail were etched in darkness across the ancient stones.

But how was that possible?  I was standing right here, yet my shadow showed something entirely different.  My heart hammered against my ribs as I took a hesitant step backwards.

The shadow wolf remained still.

Then, slowly, it lifted its head and looked directly at me.

And smiled.

Before I could process what I was seeing, a blinding pain ripped through my body.  I collapsed to my knees, a scream tearing from my throat as agony surged through every muscle and bone.

I clutched at my chest, gasping for air.  It felt as though my body was being torn apart from the inside, every nerve set alight by an invisible fire.

“What is happening to me!” I cried.

But there was no answer.

The pain intensified, forcing another scream from my lips.  I curled forward, my fingers scraping against the cold stone as I desperately tried to hold on to something, anything that might keep me grounded.  Through my blurred vision, I caught one last glimpse of the wolf shaped shadow.

It was watching me.

Waiting…

The agony seemed to stretch on forever, until I could no longer tell whether I was screaming aloud or only inside my head.

Then just as suddenly as it had begun, the world started to fade.

The bridge disappeared into darkness.  The sound of the river grew distant, and my body finally went limp against the cold stones.

My last thought was a desperate, terrified question.

What am I?

Then the darkness swallowed me whole.